Saturday, 15 January 2011

CC Nigella's Sugar Roasted Peaches

If you have read my previous post, you will see that I am full of ideas for the Cookbook Challenge 2011 that I have just signed up to, but also a fortnight behind already. I was partly inspired by the theme for the first week - stone fruit. It might sound odd but I love stone fruit so much that I rarely cook with it.

I relished the challenge to cook with stone fruit. It is not that I never ever cook with it. I occasionally make muffins, chutney, cakes, and even the odd strudel or soup. But not often. I prefer to eat them as they come. We have recently had wonderful apricots from farmers markets that are just as I remember them coming off my nan's tree. This is the way apricots are meant to be eaten. Full of flavour and so soft and juicy they will drip down your chin and hands.

Ironically it is the stone fruit from cold storage that are hard and unyielding that need a little baking. So serendipity presented me with the Cookbook Challenge and a carton of hard peaches. I decided to find a recipe but all I wanted was a heavenly ripe peach.

I quite fancied warming them in the oven. I have seen such recipes with amaretti biscuits, honey and even basil to flavour the peaches but I didn't have much on hand. Then last night I found Nigella's Roasted Sugar Sprinkled Peaches. It was so simple that Nigella noted it was "scarcely a recipe". But recipes are really ideas and inspiration. This was exactly that.

It was a wonderful way to eat my peaches. Nigella suggested serving them with ice cream but we didn't even have that in the house. It was so simple I was able to prepare and eat the peaches while watching the BBC drama, Collision (which if you have watched it, you will know requires some attention). The preparation took nothing away from the luscious flavour of the peaches but added the wonderful sweet buttery syrup. Next time your peaches are rock hard, I advice you try this.

You will need 1-2 peaches per person (depending on the size of peaches). Wash and half peaches. Remove stone and arrange peaches in a baking tray (no greasing necessary). Dot some butter in the hollow of each half, sprinkle with 1-3 tsp of sugar and dot with more butter. Bake at 200 C for about 20 minutes or until soft and yielding. (I think mine needed a bit more than 20 min.) Serve warm and top with a scoop of ice cream if desired.

17 comments:

That looks divine! I've never been a huge fan of peaches (part of the problem is I like my fruit really crisp, yet peaches are usually only flavourful when they're soft and juicy), so I really like this idea of bringing out the flavour and making the soft texture palatable :)

Oh, how lovely! I made something similar years ago (they were stuffed), but these really have the drool factor. : ) What a luscious sight to behold first thing on a winter's morning (and I like winter!)

This looks simple and delicious. I really miss peaches. Here in New Jersey it just isn't worth spending the money on them in winter. They are simply not very good. So I usually do without all winter long. But I bet this would be a great way to salvage those sad supermarket peaches so I don't have to wait till summer to enjoy peaches again! thanks for a great recipe.

They look lovely. And I know exactly what you mean about not wanting to cook with them because you love them--I guy pomegranates throughout their season here, but I find I always want to just eat them fresh (and without any other ingredients) because I love them so much that way! It may not make for good blogging, but I do enjoy them. :)

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Recipes and reflections in which our vegetarian heroine dreams of being tall and graceful as a giraffe; being a goddess in the kitchen; and being gladdened by green gadgets, green food and green politics because green is the colour of hope. See About Me for more info.